The sulk could be sustained for only so long. Patrick sat down next to me. After a moment, he tore open the crackers and gobbled up several of them. As he did, I thought about how to facilitate his contact with Ashley's thoughts the day she died. I knew the first part of the story; perhaps all I had to do was get it started, and let Ashley finish it.
I never mentioned this, Patrick,' I said, 'but I used to play with Ashley-' My cell phone rang, startling both of us. I reached in my pocket to turn it off, but before I could, the three-note ring sounded again.
'It's your phone,' Patrick said.
I sighed and pulled it out. 'Hello.'
'Miss Kate?'
'Yes.'
'It's Jack, one of Mrs. Caulfield's grooms.'
'I'm sorry?' The voice sounded low and raspy, the connection unclear.
'Jack, from the bam. We got a kind of problem here. I found some painting on the bam, spray paint, low down on the west side. Don't know how long it's been there-no one goes around that way. I had to call Mrs. Caulfield about it. She's mad and coming down to see herself.'
He paused.
'So?' I asked, but I could guess what was coming.
'She said you should be here waiting to explain.'
'Did she now.'
I reminded myself that it wasn't the groom's fault that Robyn had leaped to this conclusion. And, to be fair to Robyn, Patrick had earned her suspicion.
'Would you hold for a moment, please?' I pressed the mute button. 'Patrick, did you spray paint the outside of the horse barn?'
'No.'
'Are you sure?'
His face grew anxious, his mouth moving silently before he spoke. 'I don't have any spray paint.'
I mentally ran through the forty-eight hours since he had dropped the manure through the hay chute. He had slipped off that afternoon when I had found him on the diving board, and had slipped away again at dawn when I had found him here at the pond, but I doubted he had gone anywhere other than the pool and pond. Of course, the vandalism might have been done before that and not noticed till now. 'Have you had any dares from Ashley that I don't know about?'
'No. Am I in trouble?' He had taken off his mittens to eat the crackers, I saw the tense way he curled his hands, leaving his knuckles bony white.
'Not if you didn't paint the barn.' Someone else could have, I thought, someone hoping the blame would fall on Patrick.
I released the mute button and spoke into the phone again. 'Please tell Mrs. Caulfield that I have questioned Patrick, and that it would make more sense if the person who did it was there to explain.'
'Uh, yeah, I know what you mean. But she's my boss and told me to get you, so I have to do it. Maybe you, uh, want to leave young Mr. Westbrook behind and talk to her yourself first, just until she cools down. She's a little-you know. You know how she is.'
I know very well. Neither Patrick nor I will be there.' I clicked off and slipped the phone in my pocket.
'I don't go too close to the barn now,' Patrick said to me. 'Really, I don't.'
I heard the tremor in his voice.
'I believe you.'
'Do you think Ashley did it?' he asked.
'No. I think someone else in the house is playing pranks.'
'They don't like me.'
It was pointless to deny it. 'It's their problem, Patrick, not yours. I want you to remember that I like you very much. So does Sam. Tim did-he was your good friend, and I bet the boy at school who knows about hockey likes you.'
'Ashley, too,' he suggested softly. 'She doesn't say it, but I think she does.'
'I believe so. You know, Ashley was my friend too.'
He took another cracker from the pack, then gazed up at me, frowning slightly. 'Ashley usually plays with Katie.'
I nodded. 'That's right. That's what Ashley called me. We used to play in many of the same places that you like. One of them was the play set by the cottages. Ashley was an excellent swinger. She could go really high.'
'And sing,' he added.
A shiver went through me. 'Yes, she always sang when she swung. We liked to climb trees. She and November could climb all the way to the top of some of them. I wasn't as brave.'
Patrick stared out at the pond, no longer worried about the barn, in another world now.
'I thought she had the best toys. Often we played with her horses-Silver Knight was my favorite.'
'I like Silver Knight too,' he confided.
'Ashley's favorite was Banner.'
He nodded. 'She likes his mane, the way the plastic looks ripply, like it's blowing in the wind.'
I was talking in the past tense, he in the present, but we knew the same girl.
'Ashley had lots of pets-puppies and rabbits, some chickens she kept in the old cow barn, hamsters and fish. But her favorite pet was her brown and white rabbit, the one named Silly.'
'Because he has one floppy ear,' Patrick said knowingly.
'Yes. One day, when the weather was foggy, like it is now, Silly disappeared from his cage.'
Patrick looked surprised for a moment. 'Like my hamster?'
'Yes. Ashley was very angry, and afraid, too. My mother, Joseph, and I tried to calm her and help her find Silly.'
Patrick thought for a moment, then nodded, as if he knew that now, as if he had caught up with the story told by the trace of Ashley's mind. 'Silly isn't in the house,' he said quietly.
'No, no, he wasn't. We thought someone might have let him outside.'
'She thinks Brook did it,' Patrick said.
'Yes. So my mother and I and Ashley and Joseph went out to look for the rabbit.'
'Ashley is crying.'
'She… is,' I said, shifting tenses. 'She… loves Silly very much.'
Patrick nodded and continued to gaze out at the pond.
'The four of us are looking for him. Each of us goes a different way. Though my mother tells us to stay close, we don't Ashley runs here to the pond. The ice looks as if it might be frozen.' That was as much of the story as I knew for sure. 'She-she thinks she sees Silly on the ice,' I ventured.
'She does see him.' So' Kate!' Robyn's shrill voice broke into our story. Patrick's body went rigid.
'I've had all I can take of that hellion!' Robyn shouted, sounding as if she were on the path, coming toward the pond.
Patrick turned to me, his eyes wide. 'She found us.'
With Brook's help, I thought, for he knew we were going to the pond.
'Don't worry, I'll handle her. I want you to stay quiet, Patrick, and let me talk to her. Stay on these logs. Don't move a millimeter, all right?'
He nodded.
I rose to intercept Robyn at the end of the path, keeping an eye on Patrick and, at the same time, blocking her access to him. In the last twenty-four hours he had become too fragile to withstand her explosions.
